Minirolls Musings

The Re-Shedding

A couple years ago, the tree that had been growing between the bricks of the wall behind my shed, decided to fall over. And as luck would have it, a branch punched its way through the roof of my shed. It was stormy and so, come the morning, I found a lot of stuff very wet. I had a portion of type 2 fun, patching it up as best I could in the remaining 4 days before going on holiday….

Weston Park Whoop Takeover

Weston park international model air show is absolutely-freaking-massive!!!!! I thought Wings’n’Wheels was big, but this is another level!

Sushi Fixes Everything

Weddings put a lot of pressure on everyone, after all, you only get one* shot at it.

1HH Beer Festival

It was one of the first events Aimi and I attended as a couple, wayyyyy back in 2018. And since then, disgracefully, I’ve only managed to attend a few times, so this year I made a special effort to come to the 1st Hampton Hill Sea Scouts Beer Festival.

Sunny Sunday Dragon

I woke at the time I usually wake up – because that’s just what an adult routine does to you. But also because, no matter how much a lay in would have been nice, or how warm I was in my nice big poofy down sleeping bag, my bladder said I needed to move in the direction of a loo…. Like, right now. Maybe this really is what being an adult is like, is this the start of being old??!?!

Easy Dragon Rally

After 4 years, it’s time to tackle the Dragon Rally again. It’s taken me this long to get over the trauma of the last event… the gale force winds… the rain… the oil on the roads…. the cow juice… maybe I’m not over it…

But I was off early this morning and the first stop is Tescos cafe for breakfast. I’d packed up the bike over the last few days. Packed and rebuilt actually…

BIRD 2024 – Finals Day

Link to YouTube Live Stream – Finals Day

During Qualifying Day we had neatly split all 48 pilots into 3 classes of 16 pilot finals; Hobbyist, Advanced, Elite. I arrived early and while the computers were turning on and no one was here I had about 15 mins where I could fly the track. But I didn’t. I hadn’t thought there would be time so I hadn’t charged any batteries! For the second year in a row, I wasn’t going to get to fly my own track, but hey ho, that’s the deal with running the event. Next year for definite I’m at least flying the track in the break.

One person who also nearly ended up not flying was VikingFPV. He was staying at the whoophaus and no doubt had spent the evening getting drunk and trashing his whoop around. This meant this morning he didn’t have a whoop with which to fly so while I may not have flown the track, my whoop did as I leant him my gear to fly with. When his name came up on the screen it said VikingFPV, but in the corner it also said “Dad’s Drone” haha!

BIRD 2024 – Qualifying Day

Link to YouTube Live Stream – Qualifying Day

Barely enough sleep later I found myself back at Millennium Point and arranging the last few things before people started arriving.

I got mum set up on the ticket desk with the app, pilot packs, merchandise, stickers and schedule for the day. This is something I had meant to do last night, but it just got so late that this was the first time I’d had to dedicate to the task. Dad was sent off to put the schedule sheets of paper around the tables in the pits and on the notice board. David was delegated to getting batteries ready for all the gates LED’s, plugged in and turned on. And Eddy helped me faff with everything else.

The first few people had started to arrive and as much as I wanted to, there was just no time to be social. This was going to be a long, hard, fast day and we needed to crack on.

BIRD 2024 – Setup

I woke up as late as I dared in the WhoopHaus. Not having gotten to bed until after 1:00 a.m. I wanted to get as much sleep as possible ready for the next three long days.

It’s the Germans fault after all, they only turned up at midnight and it was so good to see these international friends we’ve made that we stayed up talking far too long. And then even later thrashing our quads around the WhoopHaus track.

We have been practising on this track all night putting pack after pack through our abused quads. The DRC boys had set out the track, and like last year, it went up one staircase along the hallway and dove down the main staircase. I’ve not released any details of the track I have planned for Millennium Point but this will be good training for them as I expect to include a dive gate at the event. A very special dive gate!

Little bits of dead toy

We are making some progress. Daito is definitely learning every day. Not many new commands but getting more controlled and repeatable.

We have learnt one major new one which is very useful. Always in a positive way and never as a punishment.

“On ya bed” to go into his crate and sit.

This one has been quite easy to train as we already give him all his food there. Kongs are also something he loves, but he carries them around so they go in there too. And now we have a couple lick mats that’s also exciting to have in there. We only had to use the command each time we gave him a tasty treat or dinner and he pretty much got it. We are working on commanding him and pointing from a distance which sometimes works.

We have realised that we don’t have a release word. He is just getting up and walking away when he wants to. This is not ideal because we really want him to stay still until we give him a command that he can go do what he wants or we have another command for him. If he’s getting up and leaving before this, then we lose that control. We sort of use “go on then” when out on walks to tell the boys to go about their sniffy business ahead of us, so that works but might be a bit long. Maybe just “go on”.

What we have been getting more and more of are dead bits of stuffed toy laying around. He’s always loved a squeaker and furry toys to chew on, but now he’s more powerful he’s chewing them up. He will happily knaw the tail or ear off a stuffed toy in minutes that we have had for years with Haku and Kayto. Doesn’t really matter. It’s cheaper to chew up toys than sofas. Being home all the time means we can instantly correct him on the rare occasion he has started to chew the coffee table so it’s not become a thing yet. Hopefully the destruction will be limited to toys… but that might be wishful thinking.